


The World Gone Still

by causeways



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-14
Updated: 2008-01-14
Packaged: 2019-01-07 01:56:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/causeways/pseuds/causeways
Summary: Dean could have stopped this thing if he'd been a little faster, a little less weak—but on the last day of Dean's year, when Sam shakes him awake at 3:30 in the morning and says he's figured it out, Dean finds himself incapable of forming the word 'no'.





	The World Gone Still

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn_apocasmut. Thanks to nomelon and anasuede for betaing and to memphis86 for consulting.

Sam's been researching ways to get Dean out of the deal since the moment Dean made it. Dean shouldn't be letting him—Dean knows enough about the way demons think to know that Sam shouldn't be messing with this at all—but Sam keeps trying. He brings back more books and finds new and more creative places to hide them, which is sort of impressive, since they live out of the Impala and a set of duffel bags. Dean for sure can't go letting Sam actually void the deal, so he throws the books away after he finds them, or sticks them in public library return slots. He appreciates the continued effort on Sam's part, though.

But toward the end of the year, Dean starts to get sloppy. He'll notice Sam's books and not get rid of them immediately—he'll wait until after he showers, or until they stop for the night. Sam's not going to be able to get that much more done if Dean waits a little longer; it doesn't matter that much, and it's not like Sam's going to solve this anyway. Dean can afford to get a little sloppy.

He's not actively helping Sam—he doesn't want Sam to drop dead, "back to rotting meat in no time"—but he's not exactly stopping Sam, either. At least, not as quickly as he should. Maybe that makes him culpable in this. It probably does. He could have stopped this thing if he'd been a little faster, a little less weak—but on the last day of Dean's year, when Sam shakes him awake at 3:30 in the morning and says he's figured it out, Dean finds himself incapable of forming the word 'no'.

*

Sam will tell him later that he didn't need the books. After it's all over, Sam will tell him that it only took a little of the whammy; that's all. Sam will tell him that Ava was right about opening yourself up to the power, but she was wrong about what you were supposed to do with it. Ava was a gate for it, but Sam learned how to be a well: storing the power just beneath his skin, where it crackled, waiting to be used. He had an idea about how much of it there was, about just what he'd be able to accomplish with it—and he would have told Dean before, Sam will tell him, but he was fairly certain that if he had, Dean would have tried to find a way to stop him, and that was something Sam couldn't have allowed.

*

It's 3:30 in the morning—twenty-three hours until the deal is up, but Dean's not counting—and there is a distant idea in Dean's head that he should be arguing, that he should be telling Sam that this isn't what he wants to be doing. As soon as the thought enters his head, it's gone: nothing but Sam in the room with him, Sam telling him that everything's going to be okay, shh, Dean, Sam's going to make everything okay. Dean's body goes pliant under Sam's hands as Sam guides him out of bed. There is a chair in the middle of the room that wasn't there a minute ago; above it is a Devil's Trap.

"It's just to keep things from getting out of control," Sam says soothingly, tying Dean to the chair. "I don't think we're going to need it, but it's better to be safe."

"What are you going to do?" Dean says.

"Only what I have to do," Sam says. He lays a hand on Dean's cheek, then removes it quickly. "Sit down in the chair and help me tie your legs," Sam says, handing Dean a length of rope.

It's the most reasonable thing in the world. Dean takes the right leg while Sam takes the left.

"Make sure to tie the knots tight," Sam says.

Dean does. He makes the knots fast and presents his work to Sam.

"Good," Sam says, testing the knots. "That's good."

"What are you going to do?" Dean says again.

"Shh," Sam says, stroking his cheek again. Dean reaches up to cover Sam's hand with his own, but Sam pushes it down. "Let me tie your arms now."

"Do you have to?" Dean says.

"It's for your own good," Sam says. He presses a kiss to Dean's forehead while he tightens the knots on Dean's right arm. Distantly Dean thinks that he should be weirded out. He's so tired, though, weighed down in the chair—he can't make the effort to be weirded out. And it's Sam anyway; nothing Sam does should be strange.

Dean's left arm is tied down now. "Strain against the knots," Sam says. "Make sure you can't get free."

Dean tries. He can't.

"Good," Sam says. "That's good. I'm going to want you to repeat some things when I say them, but only when I tell you to. Can you do that?"

"Sure, Sammy," Dean says. There's a lag between the thought in his brain and the words.

Sam nods anyway, though. "Good," he says again. "Listen to what I'm saying and tune out everything else, Dean. Look into my eyes and see nothing but me."

Dean does it. He looks into Sam's eyes and sees that they are yellow, and after that he doesn't see anything at all.

*

Dean doesn't feel any different afterward, and from the look on Sam's face it's pretty clear he doesn't have a fucking clue if it worked or not. Dean spends a couple minutes taking deep breaths, then gets in the car drives them to a hole-in-the-wall in Oklahoma that serves the best burgers he's ever eaten in his life. He hasn't been there since he was seventeen and he's always been meaning to go back. There aren't exactly going to be too many more opportunities for it. Dean orders two double bacon cheeseburgers with onion rings and a basket of fries and eats every bite with ketchup. It's as delicious as he remembers it being twelve years ago. He eats it all too quickly and wants to vomit. Sam chokes down half a cheeseburger by the time Dean's done with lunch—Dean doesn't feel the need to make him eat anything else.

There's no real reason to drive back to the crossroads in Wyoming, but Dean doesn't especially know where else to go, and he's far too itchy to stay still. He gets behind the wheel and puts _Highway to Hell_ in the tape deck, because damned if anyone will ever be able to tell him he doesn't have a sense of humor. Dean's about to go into the chorus, mouth wide and hand off the steering wheel to drum when the world tilts and goes brilliantly white.

He wakes up in the passenger seat with the tang of vomit in his mouth. The cheeseburger and fries don't taste nearly as good the second time as they did when he first ate them.

"How you doing?" Sam asks without taking his eyes off the road.

Dean considers. He's pretty sure he isn't going to throw up again. "Okay, I guess. Where are we?'

"Just crossed into Wyoming." Sam grabs a Wendy's cup off the dashboard. "You want some water?"

All of a sudden water sounds like the best idea in the world, and it's got nothing to do with the lingering taste of vomit in his mouth. The need for water comes from somewhere deeper down than that—a fire in his belly. If anyone were to stand in between him and water right now, Dean thinks he might kill them.

"Yeah," Dean says. "That'd be good."

For a desperate moment he thinks Sam might refuse him. But Sam hands it over.

Dean takes a deep gasping gulp and swallows it down. It only begins to touch at the fire. Another swallow helps a little, but then he hands it back. "I might need it later," he says to the questioning look on Sam's face.

"Okay," Sam says evenly, taking the water. Resisting the urge to grab for it again is almost more than Dean can manage. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Dean says. "I'm fine." Then he looks out the windshield. "No. What happened to the sky, Sam?"

Sam takes his eyes off the road for a moment and looks at Dean. "What do you mean?"

"The sky!" Dean gestures at it. "Are you not fucking seeing this? What happened to the—"

*

Later Sam will tell him that the sky turned red the moment they entered Wyoming. Fifteen miles in, it began to swirl with black. Sam will tell him that as soon as he had noticed the sky, Dean began to babble in one of the more ancient demon tongues, one that Dean had never learned but that Sam had. (In the past year, Sam had learned many things.) Some of the demon languages could be used for many things, Sam will tell him later, but the language Dean was speaking meant only one thing: a rain of fire down upon the world, one that could not be survived.

Later Dean will ask Sam how it could have happened, all of it—and Sam will tell him with a rueful smile that this was the only way, that it had to be like this.

*

"Got to get you inside," Sam's saying, "got to get you in—"

"Where are you taking me?" Dean asks. His lips are chapped like he's been walking through the desert for days. The need for water is stronger than ever. If he could submerge himself in a lake, maybe, it might be enough: if he could drown himself.

"Shh," Sam says. "I know you need water. Come on, watch your head."

Dean's all the way into the room before he realizes he never voiced his need for water aloud. But by then he's inside and there is more to think about than that. For a moment there was a motel room like any other motel room, a pair of queen beds and brown carpet on the floor, bland curtains covering a pair of windows—and then it shifted so that there is nothing but a single twin mattress on a wire frame, pushed up against the door. They're completely inside the room already. Dean doesn't know when they got inside. There was a bathroom in the back corner for a moment, a bathroom that would have contained a bathtub (Dean doesn't know how he knows this, but he does) except that there is nothing in that corner now, nothing but walls and some sort of white powder on the ground, and there's a single window in the back of the room where there used to be two. The light coming from beyond the curtain is brilliant yellow, the color of Azazel's eyes and Sam's too, when Dean looks at him—Sam's eyes are that same yellow—and Dean lashes out at him.

"You're not Sam!" he yells. "Where's Sam? I need Sammy to fix this, I need—"

"I am Sam," it says in Sam's voice. "Dean, you have to listen to me. You have to keep your mind on me. You're seeing things that aren't there—you have to trust me."

The thing's mouth curves upwards like Sam's never would; it's too calculating. But there's an edge of urgency in the voice that Dean clings to, that makes him think that maybe this really is Sam. Dean still has to know: "What did Dad do when you told him you were afraid of the dark?"

"He gave me a .45," Sam replies immediately. "Now will you fucking come with me already?"

Dean exhales and lets his muscles move. He hadn't realized he'd dug his feet into the ground as hard as that. There is a crackling of flame in his ears now, so loud that he can barely hear Sam beyond it.

"I need you to take off your clothes," Sam is saying.

Dean goes rigid again. "What for?"

"So we can get you in the water," Sam says, exasperated. "Come on."

Then Dean hears it distantly, beyond the sound of flame: water running in a tub. If he turns his head and looks out of the corner of his eye as if he isn't really trying to see it at all, he can even catch sight of the tub: old but clean enough, white, big enough that he could fit his entire body under the surface of the water if he curled up right.

"You've got to take your clothes off, Dean," Sam tells him. "We don't have much time, you've got to—"

Dean can't see the bathtub anymore, not even if he looks out of the corner of his eye. "It's gone," he yells, "Sam, the water is—"

"No, it's not," says the demon with Sam's voice. "The bathtub's still here. Come on, there's still time if you hurry."

There are hands all over him, forcing him out of his clothes. Dean tries to resist but can't. "You're not Sam," Dean screams. "I know you aren't Sam!"

"We don't have time for this," the thing is saying, voice full of frustration. The thing's stronger than Dean is, anyway; there's no way of fighting it. Dean tries but he's failing, he has no chance—the thing's got him all the way naked and is—

—forcing him into water, which wasn't there a moment ago but it's here now, and it's Sam's hands that are forcing him under. "Gotta get you all the way in," Sam's saying, "gotta get you under."

Dean says, "Okay, yeah," and goes docilely. He lets Sam push him down deep. It's a large bathtub, just like Dean remembered it would be. He opens his mouth and lets the water rush in, glorious and cold, filling his lungs and soothing the fire out. It's a glorious feeling, the best of feelings—

—and he goes rigid, and he's not under the water anymore. He's pushing up against Sam—not Sam, it's the thing, and it's trying to force him back down under the water but he doesn't _want_ to go back under the water, no, he needs to stay above the water and let the fire breathe. The fire needs air and anyway there is no water, not anymore. The bathtub is gone and the water is gone and there is nothing but brilliant yellow in the room, golden like marigolds, and Dean is standing up high where the air is plentiful and there is no water and the fire in his belly is golden and hot. He's free and in the air and the thing is trying to force him back down—"Get back in the water, Dean, we need to get it out of you," it's saying in Sam's voice—but there is no water, Dean knows better than that.

Dean has taken all of the water and consumed it and there is nothing left but fire. It's turning in on him now, reaching out for air but reaching in on him too, searching for more of what can feed it—and the only thing to do is let it in. Absolutely the only thing he can do is curl tight up on himself and let it in.

*

Later Sam will tell him that the only way to save him was to get the fire out. Sam will say that he needed Dean to release—that the water might have done it, if he could have kept Dean under long enough, but that that might have killed Dean, too, and he couldn't have let that happen. It wasn't worth the risk, Sam will tell him, not when there was still another way.

*

There are hands forcing Dean down onto a bed. For a moment it is one of the double beds Dean remembers from the moment they first entered the room, but then it is the other room, the blinding yellow one, and the thing that is not Sam is forcing him onto the lone twin mattress against the door. Its wire frame squeals under Dean's weight.

"It's gonna be okay," says the thing in Sam's voice. "Don't you know it's going to be okay?"

Dean doesn't know that. The thing's hands on him are cold when all he wants is to be warm, to let the fire overtake the cold—but the thing is stronger than he is, stronger and so cold, and there is a shape on his back that he knows to be familiar: the form of his brother's body, except that there are no clothes between them. His brother's body is naked too and his brother's fingers are pressing into Dean's side, but it isn't Sam; it's the thing. The thing is pushing slick fingers into Dean's ass and Dean can't stop him, nowhere near to it.

"What are you—" Dean starts to say.

The thing clasps cold fingers down over Dean's mouth. "Shh, it's okay. I'm going to make everything okay. You just have to let go for me, Dean, okay? You weren't doing it before. You have to really let go this time."

"You're not—" _Sam_ , Dean is going to say, _You're not Sam_ , but then the thing turns its head upwards and there is a flash and for a moment he can see through the yellow to Sam's eyes, brown and concentrating. If Dean doesn't think about it too hard he can hold onto that for a moment and see that it is Sam with him, it _is_.

"Good," Sam says. "You're doing so well, come on, Dean, keep letting go, just like that, stay with me here," and he's working his fingers in and out of Dean's ass, slick and practiced like he knows just what he is doing.

"What are you—"

"I have to get you to let go," Sam says, pressing a kiss to Dean's neck. "I need you to let go for me, Dean, and this'll be enough, I know it will."

The thing is pressing too hard into Dean's ass, too much for Dean to take at once. It's saying, "You have to breathe for me," but there isn't any more air, nothing for Dean to breathe in. There's nothing but pressure but then the pressure is gone, finally gone, and Dean can breathe again—

And then Sam's dick is pressing into Dean's ass, far thicker than the fingers. Dean is trying to hold himself together but he's blinded, nothing but brilliant yellow light in the room.

"Concentrate on me, you have to look at me," Dean hears from behind him, and then he's being flipped over, the dick slipping out of him and slamming back in while fingers clutch into the skin at his sides. "Come on, Dean, see me here," Dean hears, and he's on his back now, legs being forced up into the air.

Dean looks. He looks and there: it's perfectly clear that it's Sam.

"I'm only doing this because I have to," Sam pants, fucking into him. "You know I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to." Sam's face is open and full of anguish and Dean believes him.

"It's okay," Dean says, rolling his hips. "Come on, come on," he says against Sam's mouth.

Sam kisses him desperately, catching Dean's lips in a bite and then kissing him again—more and harder, that's the only thing Dean can think, that he needs more of this and harder. The room is flashing out of the corner of his eyes, flickering between yellow and ordinary gray. The yellow grows brighter and closer in his vision, like the colors are moving in on him, the fire in his gut building and overtaking him.

"Eyes on me," Sam says, "eyes on me," but when Dean looks at him Sam's eyes are yellow. Dean recoils but there's nowhere to go: he's forced down on the bed and shifting is making Sam's dick hit against something inside him, rubbing it again and again, so much pleasure it hurts, and Sam is saying, " _Look_ at me, Dean," forcefully enough that Dean's eyes open and he sees that it is Sam. Even through the yellow eyes Dean sees that it is Sam, Sam who is forcing his hand between their bodies and pulling at Dean's dick.

"Let me do this, Dean," Sam says. "I have to do this."

Dean looks at his face and knows that Sam is not lying—he knows that Sam is right. For a moment longer the fire pushes at him, tries to take him over, but then Dean's eyes lock with Sam's and he does not look away. Sam pulls one more time on Dean's dick, pulls hard, and the fire tries to get into him but it can't; the only place for it to go is out, out and screaming out and the yellow of the room is exploding into red and the orange of flame and Dean is coming and he can't breathe and his mouth is full of fire and ash. He is gasping and getting nothing; there is no air. He clenches his ass around Sam's dick, riding his orgasm all the way out even though he can't breathe, there's nothing to breathe, and Sam goes rigid above him, clawing and hissing and suddenly, definitely, it isn't Sam—there's no way that it could be Sam.

*

Later Sam will tell him that until that moment he'd thought it could go a number of ways. Sam had split the power between his mind and Dean's, and it had worked—he'd known that it had worked—but now that half of it was out, the rest of it wanted out too. It couldn't stay divided. It wanted to do what it had been made from the start to do. It wanted to burn and destroy and kill, and Sam could hold onto it, let it consume him too, or he could let it out, let it out and out and out.

He had no idea what the power would do when he let it out, Sam will tell Dean later. All he knew was that there was a lot of it. He had no idea what it would do until he let it out. When it came down to it, there was no other choice.

*

Dean can see the fire building in Sam's face, the brilliant orange of it, and he knows the feel of that fire, what it is to be consumed by it—how badly he wanted that feeling, how very badly he wanted to be allowed that—but Sam wouldn't let him, and Dean is coming back to himself now, sees that the thing that is not Sam has taken over Sam's body again—and suddenly Dean can't allow that, won't even consider allowing that. He clenches his muscles even tighter around Sam's cock and says, "Come back, Sam, you have to come back, do it now."

Sam's entire body goes rigid. He shoots deep into Dean's ass, throws his head back and screams—more sound than could possibly be in Sam's body, more sound than exists in the world, and then there's fire coming out of Sam's mouth too, a steady stream of fire roaring out of him and into the room and consuming all of it, so that there is nothing in the room but Sam and Dean and the fire, and then none of that at all.

*

Later, Dean opens his eyes and the hotel room is normal again, neutral shades of tan and brown. There are two beds, but he and Sam are naked on the same one. Their clothes are folded neatly on the other bed, although neither of them would have folded their clothes.

Sam wakes up and touches Dean's hip, and then they get dressed. Dean thinks he remembers how to speak, but his mouth can't seem to form words. It doesn't really matter. They dress in silence and go out the motel room door.

Once they are outside, the motel is gone. They are in the middle of a field, thick with fresh-fallen snow. There is a split-rail fence along the edge of the field to their left, and a row of quiet trees, and the world is perfect, crystalline and still, and that is all there is to know.


End file.
